This is a most extraordinary book—probably the most extraordinary book written within anthroposophy since Rudolf Steiner's original work. Yet it is particularly difficult to write a relatively brief review that does justice to its manifold, groundbreaking, and profoundly experiential treasures. Aside from the sheer quantity of significant spiritual content, this is, I believe, due to its dense writing style, with an almost incessant content of descriptions and characterizations of mostly unknown spiritual experiences, practices, processes, and encounters. To truly grasp it, one should really work through it meditatively—and probably read it in shorter sections rather than all at once. Nevertheless, there is also a significant, metamorphic flow and a constructive climax to the book as a whole.

I have always understood that within Anthroposophy three paths to spiritual development or initiation are offered: the Christian path, which focuses on working with the Gospel of John and prayer; the Rosicrucian path, which is described in Steiner's fundamental book How does one gain knowledge of the higher worlds? is described, and “a way” (the safest and most modern) that is based on working with the content and form of Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom It is based on this. However, it has never been entirely clear what exactly this latter path entails, how it ideally proceeds, how it differs from working with other philosophical texts, and what specific exercises it might involve. From this book, one gains an understanding of how we create reality by connecting perception and concept, how this activity is the source of our freedom, the development of non-sensory thinking (pure thinking and willing), and how all this can help us lead a moral life of "ethical individualism." But it never seemed to directly describe a specific path of spiritual development.

For me, this is the first time since Rudolf Steiner's somewhat scattered hints about how to approach spiritual development work, which focuses on the content of Philosophy of Freedom Regarding the approach that must be taken, someone has actually gone quite far on this path and has written (in English!) a kind of understandable, continuous "guide" for those who want to take this path – which proves to be primarily a "liberation", purification and individualization of one's own etheric body, thereby establishing a connection with the etheric world in general, the lowest level of the spiritual world.

It is a unique and significant contemporary achievement to combine, interpret, and then, through personal experimentation, shape the various commentaries, suggestions, hints, and explanations from Rudolf Steiner's lectures on this most contemporary of all spiritual paths into a daily practice of spiritual self-development. It is not only a first-hand description of the various phases, stages, and meditative tasks of this path, but also a handbook for aspiring practitioners of this path, offering "insights into the higher worlds" for this hitherto rather obscure route. Ben-Aharon himself usually refers to it as an account of his spiritual-scientific research, but it is also a handbook for practicing this path.

Perhaps Ben-Aharon's most crucial insight is that this "philosophy" path is actually the same as, or part of, that "new yoga" practice which Steiner referred to in some places from November 30, 1919 onwards (Michael's show, GA 194) and especially in Limits of our knowledge of nature 1920 (GA 322) began to speak. – Actually, we should probably say, as Ben-Aharon does at one point, that the practice of the “new yoga” is a kind of intensification (or expansion?) of the work that began with the Philosophy of Freedom This path or practice, which Ben-Aharon calls "Michaelic Yoga," has been called "new yoga," "light yoga," or "new yoga-will." Perhaps it could be better called "etheric yoga," or even "perception yoga" or "sensory yoga," which would not give the impression that working with thought is overemphasized at the expense of working with feeling, sensing, and willing—a long-standing problem within the anthroposophical movement. However, I think that Ben-Aharon, as the principal pioneer of this path, should have the right to give it its name.

Besides Ben-Aharon's extensive study of spiritual science writings, I believe there are two key aspects of his background that helped him to uniquely decipher, pursue, and describe this path in detail. He mentions both in his preface. The first was a supernatural experience of the ethereal Christ in his early twenties (with various sequelae). The second was his lifelong engagement with modern and postmodern philosophy, which is explored in his dissertation. The knowledge of the ›I‹ in Husserl's phenomenology its zenith. In recent times, probably no other anthroposophist has explored, understood, and interpreted the contemporary spiritual value of the writings of postmodern philosophy as broadly and deeply as he has.

I know anthroposophical friends who have given up on reading at least some of Ben-Aharon's earlier books (such as...). The event in science, history, philosophy and art and The new experience of the supernatural) to read because they were not sufficiently familiar with 20th-century philosophy, especially not with the terminology and expressive means of contemporary postmodernism, and also because of the daunting number of endnotes in the latter. None of this should be the case with Michaelic Yoga a problem. If anything, I found the challenge in this generally accessible book to be maintaining focus as a reader while the author often describes lofty or sublime spiritual experiences and unfamiliar extrasensory meditative methods encountered in the various stages of practicing the Michaelic Yoga are involved. Although I would say that this book is not exactly one for beginners in anthroposophy, probably the best preparation for absorbing it and for embarking on the path of Michaelic Yoga is a prior study of the Philosophy of Freedom.

Following a more penetrating overview in the first two chapters of our ordinary, objective perception and our sense of reality, which is based on ideas in the Philosophy of Freedom Based on (but also on insights from modern philosophy, although he doesn't mention this), Ben-Aharon begins his presentation of the Michaelic path of yoga with meditative instructions that seem very doable and attainable, but which steadily progress throughout the book to descriptions of higher and more demanding spiritual experiences. Many passages, especially in the latter half of the book, are poetic, inspirational descriptions of spiritual meditative processes and experiences. Some of these seem to uplift or even purify the soul of the actively engaged reader simply by following Ben-Aharon's language in thought and imagination. I found that one can almost get a kind of "touch high" by absorbing, as if by osmosis, the detailed descriptions of the stages of spiritual experience along this new path of yoga. In any case, much in this book requires an above-average level of activity from the reader, as the author puts it, "an increased inner cognitive activity and participation of the reader" (p. 152, hereafter referred to only by page number).

Michaelic Yoga (and also its shorter follow-up book) Michaelic Yoga – How a Book is BornThis book reveals for the first time some of the full extent of Ben-Aharon's spiritual achievements in pioneering the path of Michaelic Yoga (including what lay behind the writing of his earlier books), making it easier for others to follow this challenging journey of spiritual development. At several points, he emphasizes that such progress and achievements should be received with humility as gifts of grace from the spiritual world. In more than one way, he hints at the supernatural assistance he received while traversing this path (and presumably also while writing this book).

Based on his own experience, he brings together a broader, yet contemporary, human perspective with some of the most difficult-to-grasp anthroposophical developments described by Rudolf Steiner (whom he sometimes quotes to establish these connections). After reading the Michaelic Yoga One can begin to interpret many things Steiner said in a new light, and within the context of Michaelic Yoga it also offers new, fresh, seemingly more experiential understandings of a number of familiar anthroposophical terms and concepts, such as Spirit-Self (Manas), Imagination, Inspiration, the etherization of the blood, the resurrected corporeal phantom, the sentient body, the etheric Christ, the third eye, Adam Kadmon, the Holy Grail, the future means of human reproduction emanating from the larynx, and the functioning of various chakras – even for some non-specifically anthroposophical terms, such as the Immaculate Conception, the Eucharist, the Tree of Life, the New Jerusalem, Kundalini, Entelechy (Aristotle) and the idea of a purely etheric 'World Wide Web'.

In the remainder of this review, I will attempt to give an initial, partial picture of some stages of the practice of Michaelic Yoga, including some quotations, to convey a sense of the "tone" and quality of writing one encounters in this book. As one progresses, there are frequent repetitions in varying languages, as well as periodic summaries, to help the reader follow the progress on this journey through mostly unfamiliar spiritual territory. The steps and experiences of this path are not described as succinctly as Steiner's descriptions in How does one gain knowledge of the higher worlds? Almost every step is deliberately documented with multiple descriptions and flashbacks – but each time presented slightly differently, as if one is circling a particular reality and approaching it from slightly different perspectives. – As Ben-Aharon himself writes:

“Such summaries and repetitions are an important part of the practice and research of Michaelic Yoga. One must always return to the original practices of each process in order to reach a higher level.” (142)

I should also mention that the specific meditative exercises or processes that are described are primarily Examples For working with perceptions from a single sense, there are examples that can be almost infinitely multiplied and deepened through similar work over a lifetime with other examples from the same sense or other senses (of which there are twelve in total, grouped in threes relating to different aspects of the human constitution). – As a new, modern path based entirely on the freedom of the practitioner, this path to initiation does not seem to have so many fixed stages or practices – or at least there are many alternatives and variations for most stages.

Ben-Aharon begins his explanation of the first steps of Michaelic Yoga with the analogy of the scientific electrolysis of water into two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, to clarify the process of separation and etherification of sensory perception and imagination. The goal is to experience pure perception and pure thought separately as liberated etheric forces. He also contrasts the "presentation" of a real thing with "representation" as the shadowy idea that we after of the original experience. He adds that the first step in the practice of Michaelic Yoga is to decompose (or "electrolyze") the condensed, hardened result of ordinary knowledge: the concept. This liberates the living, light, expansive essences of all experience and thought from their representations to their pure, living, original ethereal state—for one must then also learn to reverse this process.

The actual activity of thought and its source will be not It is imagined (i.e., muted or killed) like all other mental representations, although we are usually unaware of this process. In Michaelic Yoga, by resisting our hunger to explain, name, fix, and possess every sensory experience through thought, we first strive to open a tiny separation or gap in time between perceiving and thinking, perception and concept. We then learn to control and observe this process of separation, or even to stop the constant unconscious piecing together of our reality. In doing so, we discover for the first time the extent to which our ordinary cognition separates our etheric being and becoming from the real, living etheric being and becoming of the world. Both the now-liberated perception and the concept have an etheric life of their own, which had been killed, muted, suppressed, and hidden in the representations with which we represent reality. We experience the brain as an instrument for contracting, constricting, condensing, degrading, and devitalizing the living forces of our own body and the cosmos, transforming them into mere representation. Outside of this activity of the head and brain, both thinking and perceiving are free, open, and vibrant currents within the greater cosmic whole. We can develop a new kind of "etheric breathing" (as described by Steiner on pp. 123–124 in [book title]). Limits of our knowledge of nature (He speaks of it as "spiritual-psychic breathing"), by alternately "breathing in" deeper into the body on the one hand and then "breathing out" on the other, or expanding into the etheric world.

Ben-Aharon then addresses the "etherization of seeing" in Chapter 4. Let me first summarize some of what Steiner said in Michael's show to this end. – Sensory perception is not a purely material process. – Every one of our sensory impressions – whether of light, warmth, sound, speech, or touch – creates a kind of "afterimage" in our etheric body. – This is most easily observed in visual phenomena, such as the afterimage of the sun or a bright light that one sees when closing one's eyes; or the etheric complementary color that one sees against a white background when intensely contemplating an external color. – This flame-like, etheric afterimage gradually fades from our own consciousness, but it has been imprinted as a real process in the cosmic ether, in the Akashic Records. – This is because with every sensory perception, an external psychic element flows into us on the wings of the etheric. – Every sensory perception includes this etheric level of apprehension as well as a physical level; normally this happens unconsciously unless we pay particular attention to it. – Since the mystery of Golgotha, there has also been an external psychic or astral element, a thought element, which we encounter in our sensory perceptions together with the physical and etheric dimensions.

Every external sensory impression encounters similar physical, etheric, and astral elements from within our own human nature. Steiner speaks of a "crossing" that takes place between an external, passive soul element of cosmic thought and an active, internal soul element of will. Normally, we are unaware of how the activity of our will in each sensory perception forms this "crossing point" with the more "passive" cosmic thought/soul element flowing in from the outside. Ben-Aharon presents, with a single extended example, the practice of the "spiritual electrolysis" of each of our senses, which the Michaelic Yogi can perform. By strengthening our will and devoting ourselves to this task, we progress by purifying and releasing a portion of the physical, etheric, and astral bodies responsible for our constant perceptions, so that these can serve new purposes. Ben-Aharon summarizes:

“We can individualize these liberated bodily forces, make them our own, and use them now to purify, liberate, intensify, and spiritualize sensory perception.” (70)

It has long been part of the anthroposophical understanding and method (in both the sciences and the arts) that one approaches the spiritual reality of a phenomenon through the practice of phenomenological or qualitative (as opposed to purely physical or quantitative) perception. To illustrate the basic meditation process of Michaelic Yoga in this book, Ben-Aharon gives only one example from the practices of each of the first two groups of senses worked with: the etherizing of a color from the sense of sight, which belongs to the three "higher middle senses" (sight, hearing, warmth), and the etherizing of a smell from the sense of smell, which belongs to the three "lower middle senses" (smell, taste, touch). However, the effective practice of even these initial examples will be quite strenuous and challenging for most readers and will most likely extend over many years or decades to achieve the results described by Ben-Aharon. However, many anthroposophical readers will have a certain advantage in a process he describes, the etherization of thought, if they have already been dealing with the topic for some time. Philosophy of Freedom and have worked on their representation of the processes of human cognition.

As a more specific, but still quite abbreviated, example of the practice of Michaelic Yoga, I will, often using Ben-Aharon's own language, describe only the first, simplest step: the etherization of sight through six steps involving a color impression. He first gives a broader overview: "The first stage of the etherization of perception begins when we learn to separate the pure 'sense qualities' from the objects to which they are bound. ... Then we purify them further and penetrate beyond the pure quality into the next, higher force that acts through them. The pure qualities of sense perceptions become transparent to the real formative forces." of the world, which act through these in our body, mainly shaping, forming, and nourishing it until puberty. And then we let them flow inward as pure formative etheric forces, … The more the purified formative forces of the etheric world act upon the etheric formative forces of the body, the more a gradual liberation of the etheric body takes place from the head down.” (71; my italics) He then uses “the decomposition and deconstruction” of our “cognitive composition” of seeing colors “to demonstrate the process of sensory purification, etherization, and inhalation.”

We begin by focusing on a single color (in his example, red) and disregarding the object to which it is associated. Although we might be able to isolate the pure sensory quality of red, we find it difficult to maintain and extend this object-free color perception for very long. Ben-Aharon discovered that in order to "keep alive and grow" the pure quality of red in his consciousness, he had to "endow" it with some of his own life force. This creates the additional task of ensuring that we are looking at red itself and not some of our own personal reactions to it.

This leads to the first of many paradoxes in the practice of Michaelic Yoga: "we must pay particular attention to ensuring that the energy which we pay attention to the red impression exclusively from the red. … (76, my italics) Even at this early stage, we are confronted with the illusory nature of the strict separation between self and world, subject and object, which characterizes our ordinary contemporary consciousness. But if we persevere, we come to experience red itself as “a freely given gift” to us, even as “a blessed gift.” We then feel a desire to give something back to the essence of the color red, out of gratitude for what we have received from it throughout our lives. “Thus arises the first cognitive-moral bond, an essential subjective-objective, reciprocal determination and exchange of forces between red and us.”

“A feeling of trust and cooperation arises ‘with the forces of the real spiritual world that work through red.’ This ‘mutual gift’ makes the purified red quality more intense, more vibrant, and more saturated. … This reciprocal interplay becomes ever more vibrant and intense until a mutual exchange of intensities is achieved, which is self-reinforcing and self-sustaining.” (77)

This ultimately leads to a moment in which we forget ourselves and “experience that our conscious attention is maintained and sustained without our conscious reflection. … that the enormously enhanced powers of red take over and support our self-awareness when we cannot bear it ourselves.” (78) Goethe had already anticipated this step in his study on the moral effects of colors.

In the next stage, called "blushing," we awaken to "a completely new red self-awareness," in which we become aware of the difference between "being aware of blushing" and "having a Introduction of We become aware of “Red.” (80) Ben-Aharon suggests the analogy of being in love for this experience, in which we briefly feel ourselves outside our “embodied, brain-bound, imagined self” in “a completely different place and time.” “It is our purest love and devotion to its gift that allows us to offer Red an individualized, free gift of our own powers” (81) and the essence of Red responds in the same way.

“Blushing has thus become a mutual exchange of intensities between ‘me’ and ‘red.’ … We both enter into a reciprocal cycle of mutual reinforcement and metamorphosis; we both are changed by this mutual intensification.” (82)

This enables the next step on the path called “Quality Becomes Intensity,” in which self-awareness, having been lost in the initial experiences of purified red, returns from the other side, as it were, turned inside out, carried and strengthened by the transformed essence of red itself. I become red self-awareness, that is, I consciously experience the world through the fact that I now share the being and becoming of red in the universe. (82) “The bridge [to red] is complete when there is only ‘red,’ purified, strengthened from both sides of the chasm that separates human becoming from world-becoming.” (83) Ben-Aharon adds that if we work in this way with other colors as well, it becomes a “rainbow bridge.”

But from the moment we turn completely red, he emphasizes, “that we have not only lost the ability to imagine the external color, but that we have also lost its qualitative soul experience.” Just as our ordinary perception of red vanished into its pure soul quality, so the qualitative experience of red “becomes the colorless ‘color,’ and this colorless color becomes pure intensity, which feels, wills, and thinks through us.” (85) “The ‘color’ of red becomes the colorless color of pure world-force, intensity, and becoming.” (86)

This experience leads to the next, fourth stage, in which “intensity becomes a revelation of the etheric world.” – This is the point at which working with color must clearly move beyond Goethe’s qualitative-phenomenological soul experience of color to Rudolf Steiner’s purely supersensible essence of color. Instead of experiencing the quality of color within our soul, “our soul goes out and unites with the objective spiritual essence of color.” (87) We now experience how color experiences itself through us. The colorless intensity becomes transparent to the forces of the spiritual world that work through it:

“Through sheer intensity, we become aware of a world force that works, weaves, and creates out there in the etheric world and into our bodies. It is the real etheric world that weaves, acts, and works through the intense forces of what we previously imagined and experienced as ‘red.’ … Thus, sheer intensity now opens a gateway through which real formative world forces flow into our entire being.” (87) “This world is experienced as intensely alive and vital, permeated by currents and flows from all directions of the cosmic sphere.” (88)

Before moving on to the fifth stage, the "exchange of essence between man and world," Ben-Aharon takes a small detour to add perspectives on what is now perceived about the relationship between the cosmic etheric world and our own etheric body and its forces, especially in the brain. “In daily perception and behavior, our head is our center, radiating from within outwards, but in the etheric experience from the outside, the physical head and brain are experienced as a ‘death machine’ into which a multitude of etheric world forces from vast cosmic spaces stream to be annihilated and transformed into forces of ordinary human consciousness.” (89) “The real, living world of light, color, and other sensations is far too intense and would completely overwhelm and lull us to sleep.” (91) The full etheric light forces are weakened upon striking the retina of the eye, converted into an electrical current that flows via the optic nerve to the brain, where of the original intense world force only a mere idea remains in our consciousness, a shadowy corpse of, in this case, red. But if we are able to intensify and spiritualize color impressions, the etheric body (at least the upper part) can detach itself from the physical brain and a To develop "etheric knowledge" that can serve as a kind of etheric mirror surface to reflect real, fully living etheric experiences to our awakened etheric cognition; this, Ben-Aharon tells us, is the basis of imagination.

Being able to observe from outside the body, we see how etheric forces, drawn from the perception of light and color, encounter the etherified blood flowing from the body (primarily from the heart) to the brain, thereby releasing etheric, psychic, and spiritual forces that stimulate an even higher potential within the already somewhat etherified blood. This is the force that creates our self-awareness, fueled by the warmth of the blood through which the human self lives within the body.

“It is indeed one of the most wonderful experiences one has in the course of practicing Michaelic Yoga: to participate in this remarkable process of transformation of the heat element, the carrier of the ego forces, with which the incoming world forces unite as they flow through our etherized senses, nerves and our brain (and also through the whole skin).” (95)

A kind of difficult-to-describe, reciprocal exchange of self-awareness can now take place between our new, initially head-centered, etheric knowledge and the cosmic etheric world. This marks a certain first high point in the entire practice of Michaelic Yoga.

“The etherization of sensory perception combines with the etherization of the blood and its spiritualized fiery ego-forces, and the mutual spiritual exchange of essences, which began with the exchange between the human etheric body and the etheric forces of the color red, is now intensified, strengthened, and raised to the ego-level. In this way, it becomes a truly spiritual, that is, a completely supersensible experience, which illuminates and realizes a new, humanly-worldly connected self-awareness, with the help of which more advanced stages of spiritual-scientific research can be carried out.” (97)

Ben-Aharon adds:

“This is also a fully individualized ‘Pentecostal enlightenment,’ the conscious flaring up of individual spiritual consciousness, which is brought about by the union of the inner Christ forces that we receive into ourselves with the ‘Holy Spirit’ that flows from the spiritual worlds into our ethereal senses and minds. When the two spiritual streams unite, we experience the illumination of our spirit-self as world-self, and the spiritual world experiences its own Christ-self, which shines back to it from below, from the earth and humanity.” (97)

However, there is one final stage in working with this etherization of seeing, where we encounter “an insurmountable bodily threshold.” When we attempt to use our newfound capacity for free etheric cognition to penetrate the body below the head, we find that we become increasingly hindered and blocked the deeper we descend (this begins as early as the mouth region and increases the further we descend into the body). “We discover that the body as a whole becomes opaque and then even ‘hostile’ to our etherized cognition and the forces of color and light that stream into the head from the etheric world. Indeed, the body begins to reject and repel them.” (98) Interestingly, different etherized colors are repelled by different lower body regions—for example, red by the stomach and green by the lungs.

We finally discover that this resistance is a psychosomatic astral-etheric reaction, experienced as dense, hardened unconscious instinctual forces that constitute and possess what Ben-Aharon calls the "metabolic-emotive-cognitive mechanism" (MECM), a part of the human constitution. This hardened barrier serves to "protect us in life and not be overwhelmed by the mighty forces and currents that connect our body with the physical, etheric, and astral forces of the earth and the cosmos." (99) Indeed, this resistance, this "sense of inner firmness, is the basis of our modern [self-]consciousness, without which we would remain ethereal, fluid beings without a cognitive or moral backbone." (99) One might say that the ultimate goal of Michaelic Yoga can only be achieved by

"if we succeed in consciously uniting the etheric forces of the world, which flow through every sense perception, with the body's own pure etheric forces, whose existence and function are constantly hindered, individualized, and suppressed by the dominant astral forces of individuation." (99)

Below this barrier, also called the "diaphragmatic threshold," lie deep within our unconscious highly protected, pure, virginal, childlike life forces of sublime spiritual origin ("the sleeping Beauty"), which the process of Michaelic Yoga hopes to unite with its already liberated etheric cognitive powers. This causes a crisis in the work of purifying sensory perceptions, which can only be overcome if we additionally "deal with the senses of smell, taste, and touch, and a whole range of related sensations, with desires, drives, and instincts that are bundled at the core of the entire MEKM complex." (100) The greater part of the rest of the book deals with the search for the necessary powerful forces and a navigable passage to be able to cross this denser mind-body threshold.

First, we must generate and gather additional etheric forces from working with the etherization of thought. In doing this task, we... Philosophy of Freedom Following this process, we dissect and purify the components of representation (perception and concept), thereby releasing the living spiritual essence of thought (which is also degraded and killed in our skulls). To liberate thought from the senses and the brain, we must cease constantly producing new representations from sensory input and also halt the recurrence of related memory images. Ben-Aharon calls these two aspects "the soul hands of the two-petaled lotus flower or chakra," which create a dead, empty consciousness from which purely ethereal thought could re-emerge as a vital, living, indeed cosmic force. With the "released life-stream of thought," we can then simultaneously expand higher toward the cosmic ethereal sun and "deeper into the new 'sun in the earth'" (120).

“We discover that this pure, life-giving thought unites with the same original spiritual force and beings that created the physical Earth and all its physically incarnate beings, as well as all the solar and galactic bodies in the starry sky.” (126)

We then have the forces we need to tackle the etherization of the senses of smell, taste, and touch, which push and deposit themselves over the lower senses of balance, movement, and life—a condensation from which much of our self-awareness in ordinary life is derived. As an example, Ben-Aharon then cites a related but far more complex, seven-stage process of the complete etherization of the scent of a rose (sense of smell) and then becomes able to use the stronger life forces of his liberated etheric being to gradually penetrate and dissolve the MEKM resistance, initially through its connected centers in the middle and posterior parts of the brain. He records the moment when this project of etherizing the scent of the rose, in conjunction with the forces released by the preceding color etherization and thought etherization, finally succeeds, after much effort and time, in completely liberating the etheric brain from the physical brain, whereby:

“We have the sensation that our etheric skull is breaking open, that the etheric correspondences of the hemispheres are being separated from one another, turning around and flattening etherically, spreading and expanding like the petals of a flower or like two wings of an etheric flight. An inversion from inside to outside and outside to inside, that is, a complete reversal of the etheric brain and etheric head, takes place as the etheric ‘tunneling’ progresses deeper and longer.” (153)

With the two-petaled chakra as the center of the "third eye," this etheric brain now becomes the primary "cognitive, breathing, rhythmic" organ of etheric cognition, both within the human etheric body and for the cosmic etheric world. But this conscious etheric "seeing" through the chakra and the brain is entirely different from seeing with physical eyes:

“The ‘third eye’ has a simultaneous etheric all-round view, and it can observe the entire etheric brain process as well as its connections to the surrounding etheric environment and to the cosmos from all directions at once.” (154)

Along the way, this process of self-discovery has brought with it the free, conscious surrender of self. It is a

“The infinite elevation and spiritualization of freedom through the truest devotion and love for the other being to whom one is invited. This experience of metamorphosis, of being received by the true being of the other, out of love triggered by the highest freedom, will be the most beautiful experience of a humanity that progresses in the right way. Therefore, it must be understood more and more in the future that all true knowledge requires becoming one with its subject matter, which is not matter but real spiritual essence” (139)

Ben-Aharon poetically summarizes the full significance of this achievement, "the first independently formed, supersensible, ethereal organ, which is recognized by human science as an individual achievement of modern humanistic research," as a kind of flowering process of the brain:

"It becomes an unfolding chalice, radiating inner light, opening, awakening, and growing together with the light of the cosmos, like a flower unfolding its enclosed petals toward the light of the sun. Its wonderfully sparkling and radiant rays reach up into the most distant cosmic spaces above, merging with spiritual radiations emanating from the sun, moon, planets, and stars, and communicating far and wide with the etheric formative forces of all natural and earthly beings. It is a magnificently dynamic, ever-awake and active organ of light, like a blossoming, adorned crown, with the third eye as its wheel of motion, through which the united life forces of humanity regulate, harmonize, and direct the circulating ebbs, flows, and currents of etheric perception and knowledge. This flower, formed and brought to maturity through the practice of Michaelic Yoga, becomes the principal organ of etheric world-human, human-worldly knowledge and consciousness." (155)

This later develops further through "extensions" to centers established in the throat and heart (chakras), bringing with them new abilities. Then, every area of the entire etheric body is spiritually "reconfigured" in manifold ways to become an expanded, yet individuated world-human etheric body or being. Through the

“In the ‘etheric exchange of essence’ within the now united human-world ‘I’, the world becomes self-aware through the human being and the human being becomes world-aware through the world.” (158)

Continuing along this path, Ben-Aharon is able, in the last third of the book, to describe spiritual-scientific experiences that are difficult to fully imagine, yet sometimes sublime and even thrilling. Each new development in the liberation and construction of a new etheric body opens up new levels of spiritual experience and revelation. For example, when the human heartbeat and breathing harmonize with the cosmic etheric heartbeat and its breathing, we feel that we are approaching “the spiritual heart-source of universal life” (the etheric Christ). (160)

Equipped with additional, stronger, and more concentrated etheric sensory and cognitive powers (the latter involving the overcoming of the Ahrimanic death forces in the head), additional "heart forces" from the greater etheric world, and a new intensification of etheric cognitive breathing from the head to the heart, the practitioner is finally able to overcome the toughest MEKM obstacles ("the dragon guardian of the lower world"), cross the diaphragmatic threshold, and, by working with the etheric forces of the metabolic and reproductive organs, consolidate a third functional center of "cognitive breathing," of "mutual exchange of essence between the etheric body as a whole and the etheric world as a whole," within the entire threefold etheric body. Meanwhile, the activated astral chakras have also slowly built a new "etheric nervous system" as a "framework" for additional etheric cognitive functions and help to activate a stronger throat center, about which Ben-Aharon writes:

"It shapes our reproductive, heart and head emanations with what can be called 'the creative human-world word', through which our interaction with the etheric world is written and articulated in etheric vowels, consonants, syllables, syntax and vocabulary." (172)

A new, essential openness and connection arises between the etheric body and the cosmic etheric world. In this new etheric “body-world continuum,” the etheric body and its forces are “parts of infinitely large planetary and cosmic assemblages and networks of functions and connections that operate outside the inner physical space of the body.” (175) One of the most fascinating and challenging aspects of the last part of this book is Ben-Aharon’s often captivating descriptions, linguistically represented, of spiritual experiences taking place in unknown worlds where the order and organization of the sensory world is reversed, and where we encounter realities and beings that we can only experience if we are able to approach them. becomeOn a certain level, the spiritual-etheric world functions as a living being in which we participate and which, conversely, participates in us—with which we are organically interwoven. Normally illusory polarities of experience in the physical-sensory world—inner-outer, subject-object, self-world—dissolve or transform, so that both aspects function and are experienced simultaneously and reciprocally.

Ben-Aharon describes this:

“In this new topography, the inner space of the body is only the folded outer space of the world, and conversely, the outer world is an inverted and infinitely multiplied body.” (174)

“What we discover is that all the internal organs and processes are neither ‘inside’ nor ‘outside’ of us, but that we are outside of ourselves: … But then, in the etheric world-body continuum, trees and animals, mountains and seas, clouds, rain and lightning, sun and moon are our internal forces and organs, while the etheric and astral counterparts of liver, kidneys, lungs, heart are cosmic bodies and beings. The internal organs and organic processes are distributed as etheric-astral natural, biological, meteorological, atmospheric, planetary, and cosmic currents and functions, and participate in infinite currents of universal becoming.” (175) “We realize that what our senses perceive and what our thinking presents as an external world distinct from our internal world is not simply an arbitrary error or an illusion, but a profoundly meaningful and exact inversion and invagination of the true state of all etheric, astral and spiritual relations." (176)

This experience of a shared etheric planetary body, permeated by cosmic emanations from the cosmos' periphery, is not the only new experience that enables penetration into the lower depths of the body and the creation of a new etheric body. In the etherization of the lower abdomen, a kind of reversal of puberty takes place, releasing the "sacred treasure" of the purest, paradisiacal etheric vestibules, which was hidden there during childhood and preserved from the "pre-Luciferian childhood of humanity." Likewise, the separation of the sexes is etherically dissolved, without which humanity "would never have developed self-awareness, freedom, and true love based on freedom." (183) In these depths are also found “the original, paradisiacal powers of Christ, which work together with his eternal powers of resurrection.” Spiritualized, the flesh begins to become word again, and in a kind of “immaculate conception event” a new human-worldly etheric being is conceived, a new etheric-“cosmic child” can develop with the “seed powers of a new universe.”

I don't want to spoil the experiences of inspiring joy that the reader can have by discovering some of the spiritual events described in the last third of the book, but I do want to at least hint at the nature of some of the treasures to be found. As one might expect, Ben-Aharon sometimes struggles to describe unfamiliar spiritual experiences in language more suited to phenomena of the physical world.

After the practitioner has liberated and formed a new etheric body, they must go on to receive and create a truly independent spiritual individuality capable of fully functioning in the etheric world—the Spirit-Self. This involves mastering the forces of both birth or incarnation and death or excarnation. Ben-Aharon tells us that this work is supported, among other sources, including the astral forces, by “the ever-increasing forces of [Rudolf Steiner’s] eternally preserved etheric body” (198), which have been accessible and individualizable since the end of the twentieth century. As part of this process, we must “build a hut” as an etheric dwelling, undergo a ritual of death and rebirth to enter into communion with the spiritual cosmic community, and guide our newborn etheric body to be consumed by the cosmic fire as we individually reenact the etheric second death of Christ, the “Second Mystery of Golgotha.”

As our “baby steps” in this new phase of the Michaelic Yoga journey, we must learn to nourish ourselves and develop the skills we need; Ben-Aharon presents this as the cosmic-etheric equivalent of the early human stages of learning to walk, talk, and think—but etherically, these occur in reverse order. To achieve this, we enter the etheric “nursery” (“the spiritual region closest to the physical earth”), which is filled with “the mighty, eternal trees with magnificent flowers and fruits of eternal life and lush meadows blooming with indescribably radiant beauty and grace.” …We recognize that we are entering the garden of spiritual-earthly achievements, which the cosmic gardeners, the angels, tend and cultivate with infinite devotion, joy, love, and expertise.” (116) These are the magnificent spiritual blossoms of all true moral ideals and deeds, works of art, compositions, and ideas, including unrealized “youthful ideals of the living and the dead of all times and ages.” (221)

The next phase of learning the cosmic language is particularly supported by working with the etheric effects of great, true works of art on Earth. Ben-Aharon gives the example of the complementary nature of Leonardo's. Lord's Supper and Raphael Sistine Madonna“They are experienced as creative and formative, world-creating and shaping forces that teach us our ‘etheric mother tongue.’” (227) The subsequent development consists of drawing upon spiritual fruits created by moral acts on Earth to generate a “moral gravity” and etheric ground that counteracts the one-sided forces of lightness in the etheric world. Ben-Aharon observes:

“…to cultivate and spiritualize humanity’s most valuable moral achievements… is one of the main tasks of all beings, humans and angels, who have been actively participating in the work of the supersensible Michael School since the middle of the 20th century…”

In his final chapter, Ben-Aharon describes how the more mature etheric individuality co-creates the “new sun” of the Christ-permeated, etherealized earth. Although the step of “mutual exchange of essence with the cosmic source” (Christ) is “the most intimate soul experience in the etheric world” (245), he attempts to describe it in ordinary language because, as he tells us, participation in it is the desire of the Christ being. In the development of this “communication,” the other being is in us, and we are in the other. “Communication here is communion” or “mutual exchange of essence.” (249) This process involves (at least for Ben-Aharon) working with the mantra that begins with “Brighter than the sun”, which first “exalts” Christ and then “reverses” to express more precisely how “He, the Supreme, bends down to embrace and purify the feet of our lowest self…” (253)

I have no doubt that Ben-Aharon's descriptions of this path correspond to his experiences. In conclusion, I would like to consider whether they might leave some questions unanswered. Since he primarily describes the experiences and processes of a etheric body-path describes: Does it thereby cover the entire new yoga path to the spiritual self, which presumably also includes the integration of the astral body and the ego? In any case, the role of the astral body and ego requires further clarification, especially since the development of the spiritual self in anthroposophical literature is described as a transformation of the Astral-body is depicted. Furthermore, Ben-Aharon has made it clear in this context that he only conveys imaginative experiences, even though, as he says, some inspired and intuitive aspects belong to the imaginative faculty.

Secondly, he implies that these processes always unfold in an individualized form, but apparently presents his own experiences as the objective pattern that applies to all followers of this path. Would each of us experience these processes somewhat differently? It seems to me that more research by others is needed to confirm these steps and their variations. However, if we ask ourselves how "objective" his descriptions of this path are, we realize that the whole idea of "objectivity" actually evaporates in completely subjective-objective spiritual (etheric) world experiences like those described here. We come to the realization that every truth and every being (and every polarity) is multifaceted and must always be experienced anew individually from different perspectives, especially at this level where "knowing" something means having to becomeOf course, this realization may be unpleasant for some people who are used to the ordinary, rigid subject-object sensory world – nevertheless, this realization seems to be an increasing necessity in order to navigate the changing spiritual climate of the 21st century.

David Adams, Ph.D. (ctrarcht@nccn.net), a retired art history professor and Waldorf school teacher in California, has been editor or co-editor (and author) of the international, English-language ›Art Section Newsletter‹ since 1998. He is also the founder and a member of the steering committee of the Lightforms Art Center in Hudson, New York.

First published under the title »Making Yourself New« in Being HumanSpring 2018. Slightly revised by the author. Translated into German by Ulrich Morgenthaler.

Reviews